Author: News Room

Women in blue cloth hairnets sew the finishing touches on plush pink piggies and orange stuffed foxes, before tossing them onto giant piles in Maria Liao’s factory in southern China. They will be boxed and shipped to the United States, where many of Ms. Liao’s clients are based.The factory is quieter than it should be. Orders are down this year, as Ms. Liao’s customers hesitate in the face of a succession of tariffs that President Trump has put on products coming from China, another round of which will probably come this week. The duties have upended small businesses in the…

What’s behind door No. 1? President Trump likes a big splash, and he’s not holding back for Wednesday’s introduction of reciprocal tariffs on America’s trading partners: Expect a major announcement in the Rose Garden.Otherwise, detail is lacking. That prompted a major stock sell-off, with the S&P 500 experiencing its worst one-month loss since 2022 as economists warn of a potential trade war that reignites inflation and dents global growth. (The futures market points to another rough open for the benchmark index on Tuesday.)“If it is necessary, we have a strong plan to retaliate, and we will use it,” Ursula von…

Hooters, the restaurant chain known for its chicken wings, its all-female serving staff in revealing outfits and its slogan — “delightfully tacky, yet unrefined” — has filed for bankruptcy in a Texas court, the company announced on Monday.Under the bankruptcy agreement, a group that includes the company’s founders — who independently run about a third of the franchised locations in the United States — will buy the company-owned restaurants in the United States from the private equity firm that owns the chain.The complicated bankruptcy filing is a way to keep many of the restaurants open.“Our renowned Hooters restaurants are here…

The world’s biggest powers were deep in a trade war. Economic losses from the tariffs that President Trump had imposed on most of the world, along with global retaliation, were accumulating. Jobs were being lost, inflation was ticking up and the world was both frustrated with and anxious about the United States.While the stakes were real, the trade war was not. Instead, it was a simulation to better understand how a global trade fight might unfold.Last month, two dozen trade experts from the United States and other countries gathered at a Washington think tank to try to simulate what could…

Chris Bergen, who runs a commercial greenhouse business in northern Minnesota, finds himself “walking a tightrope” roughly two months into President Trump’s second term. Acute uncertainty about how the administration’s trade and immigration policies will unfold and affect the economy has made him much more cautious about any expansion plans.As one of the country’s biggest producers of bedding plants, perennials and other flowers, Bergen’s Greenhouses is exposed on many fronts.Every June, it trucks in more than six million pounds of peat moss from Manitoba. Suppliers have stopped quoting prices until they have more clarity on tariffs. The plastic flower pots…

Amazon’s movie strategy is finally ready for its close-up.After a decade-long dalliance with big-screen theatrical releases, the giant tech company will take center stage this week at the annual convention for theater owners, spending several millions of dollars to parade a stream of A-list stars including Ryan Gosling, Ben Affleck and Chris Hemsworth. It is the first time the company has ever taken on such a role.The point: to prove that its movie arm, Amazon MGM Studios, is serious about releasing around 14 big, broad commercial films a year to theaters nationwide and around the world.The appearance is the culmination…

A federal bankruptcy judge in Houston on Monday rejected Johnson & Johnson’s request to approve a $9 billion settlement with tens of thousands of people who are suing the company over claims that its talcum powder products caused cancer.The proposal would have resolved nearly all current and future claims that the company’s talc products contained asbestos and caused cancer. Like the previous two efforts — in 2021 and 2023 — the deal tried to use an element of the bankruptcy system to settle the claims.Johnson & Johnson claims that its products did not contain asbestos and that there was no…

In recent weeks, managers of the nation’s resorts, plant nurseries, fish processors and racetracks started getting very worried.The Trump administration had yet to release a batch of H-2B visas — those available for seasonal businesses that often can’t find enough workers domestically to fulfill demand.Usually, the Department of Homeland Security releases them a few days after receiving more applications than the number of visas allowed for the second half of the year. That cap was reached on March 5, but no announcement came. Industry lobbyists got members of Congress to reach out on their behalf, put on a fund-raiser at…

America is more prosperous than ever.U.S. household net worth reached a new peak at the end of 2024. The unemployment rate has levitated just above record lows for three years. The overall debt that households are carrying compared with the assets they own is also near a record low.But even a land of plenty has its shortcomings, influencing both perceptions and realities of how Americans are doing.The U.S. economy remains deeply unequal, with vast gaps in wealth and financial security persisting even as inflation has ebbed and incomes have risen. And data designed to capture the overall population may be…

Hank Steinbrecher, a soccer evangelist from Queens whose passion as a top United States official in the sport helped usher it into the American mainstream and who, in a previous career in marketing for Gatorade, helped popularize the ritual in which victorious players douse their coaches with coolers of sports drinks, died on Tuesday at his home in Tucson, Ariz. He was 77.His death, from degenerative heart disease, was confirmed by the United States Soccer Federation, of which Mr. Steinbrecher was secretary general from 1990 to 2000.Sunil Gulati, who was president of the federation from 2006 to 2018, said in…